B-Bye June

EDIT: ok, so the pic doesnt EXACTLY look like me :D lol! What to you expect from a pic taken in a car with a cell phone??? So far, my g/f didn't even recognize it as me and my friend thought it was my daughter because the face is too round---lol! oh well, i was there--i vouch for myself that it is me--looks better than my drivers license and my work id....lol

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Can you believe half the year is gone already?

 --looks under the bed--under piles of papers--inside the closet--under the cat---

Where did it go?????????

Well. I had the rare pleasure, this last morning of the first half of the year, to have art time before going to work!  I have not been able to do that in YEARS!! But today we were up early and i turned the laptop on for something else and found myself in photoshop elements creating!!

I've been in need of a new avatar for my various social networks and had recently taken some funky photos of myself (where else but in the car with my phone! LOL!)--in about a half an hour, I arrived at this:

Filters and layers and blurs-OH MY!

I've also printed it out to add to one of my art journals.  I'm seriously thinking this year's Holiday cards may involve digital art printed out...and I am planning some Christmas in July projects!!

the wheels are spinning.....

Hope Notes

I think it is a beautiful thing how word gets around blogland (when it is a good word anyway ;) ).  While catching up on some of my favorite blogs, I came across an oportunity to commit a wonderful act of kindness.  Won't you join me in making some Hope Notes ?

some quotes to maybe use inside:

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible. --Anon

All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope.  --Alexander Dumas

Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him(her) the gift of miracles. ~Samuel Smiles

When the world says, "Give up," hope whispers, "Try it one more time. ~Anon

Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. ~ Emily Dickenson

And some beautiful examples.

Second visit to gridlock

I did get some time in the studio tonight to both finish a "real time" grid lock spread for this month's Street Team Challenge (click button in left sidebar to visit the challenge!) get a decent photo of it and photoshop the photo :)  Since I haven't been doing too much in the studio of late (except making curtains and reorganizing--ehem, cleaning--) there wasn't much in the way of "evidence" to glue into my journal--but the things that did turn up actually went well together (blue and purple pens laying around, deep blue flower rescued from the floor, a plastic scrabble tile that escaped from its friends and a usps express envelope with lovely stamps on it)--

without further ado--my second grid of the month....

Sneak Preview

Here is a little preview of a couple of the items I will have for sale in the not too distant future---

Jungle Cat

Princess Hidey loves to hide in the jungle that is my window sill of house plants :)

Grid Lock

Since I don't know when I will get to any "real time" art, I decided to do this month's Street Team challenge (see button link at left) as virtual (digital) art :) I chopped up the last of my digi tutorials and put them into a grid form:

playing with the elements

i adore digital image manipulation!! i've spent several years admiring and tinkering with digital art in various forms--yesterday i picked up a fantastic book (with a 40% off coupon--even better!) called Digital Expressions by Susan Tuttle. Absolutely perfect for me! I have the basic  knowledge of what Photoshop Elements can do, but this book acts like tutorials showing step by step how to achieve certain looks!

the first little lesson was an easy vignette--i took it a step further and altered the color to be less saturated and a touch sepia--

next was a lesson in selecting objects, desaturation and color popping--because the statue had no color to begin with though, i added a spectrum gradient layer--

third lesson was all over the board--multiple photos, text, filters, brushes...

so much fun!